In the first serious blow to the NCAA's rigid controls over the economics of college sports and how student-athletes are compensated, a Bay Area federal judge ruled Friday that the association violates antitrust laws by not paying football and men's basketball players for use of their names and images in telecasts and video games.

Instead, she gave the NCAA two options: increase scholarship aid for football and men's basketball players so that it at least equals the full cost of attending school, or place up to $5,000 a year in a trust fund payable to the athletes when they graduate or use up their athletic eligibility, whichever comes first.

Those payments won't be required for the former college athletes who sued the NCAA, only for those who will enroll in school on or after July 1, 2016, Wilken said. That interval also gives higher courts time to rule on an NCAA appeal.

The former players, however, will benefit from $60 million in settlements that the NCAA and video game-maker Electronic Arts have agreed to in a related antitrust suit over the uncompensated use of their names and images. The plaintiffs, who filed suit in 2009, are about two dozen athletes led by Ed O'Bannon, a former UCLA basketball star.

'Moderate first step'

The ruling is a victory for a group of athletes who "were interested not only in their own situation but to try to be part of a long-term solution," said Jon King, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers. He said Wilken had taken a "moderate first step" while drafting a blueprint for possible future challenges to NCAA policies.

"They feel vindication. The principle has been established," said Michael Lehmann, another lawyer for the athletes. He said the increase in scholarship aid to equal the cost of attendance was something the plaintiffs had proposed.

Wilken, who presided over a three-week trial in an Oakland courtroom, said the current rules amounted to a "price-fixing agreement (that) constitutes a restraint of trade." She rejected the NCAA's arguments that the compensation ban was justified to preserve amateurism, promote competition and maintain public support that translates into broadcast revenues.

Since its establishment in 1906, the NCAA has changed its definition of amateurism many times, Wilken said. She said the association prohibited colleges from offering any recruiting incentives to players or other compensation for decades - rules that its schools widely ignored - before first permitting athletic scholarships in 1956.

The current rules allow tennis players to keep up to $10,000 in prize money they earned before college, but forbid such compensation for other athletes and limit their scholarship aid to less than the full cost of attendance, Wilken said.

Meanwhile, she said, the average salary of football coaches in major conferences is more than $1.5 million a year, and the NCAA does nothing to limit major universities' spending on sports programs. If the ban on allowing athletes to keep any portion of the revenues they generate does anything to level competition among schools, Wilken said, it is outweighed by the NCAA's revenue policies, which tilt in the other direction.

She also gave less than full weight to the NCAA's argument that compensation for student-athletes would alienate sports fans who generate revenue for the programs.

Polls commissioned by the NCAA have found majorities who say they would be less likely to watch or attend games if players were paid $20,000 or $50,000 a year. But Wilken said the surveys did not ask participants about lesser amounts, and she also noted that the Olympics have maintained their popularity after lifting bans on professional athletes.

Fan loyalty

College sports fans are heavily motivated by loyalty to their schools, Wilken said, and there was no evidence that their interest would decrease "if student-athletes were permitted, under certain circumstances, to receive a limited share of the revenue."

The NCAA also argued that compensation would harm athletes' education by driving a wedge between them and other students. Wilken cited evidence that such divisions already exist - for example, O'Bannon's testimony that he had been "an athlete masquerading as a student," spending 40 to 45 hours a week playing, practicing and preparing for basketball games during the season, compared with about 12 hours on schoolwork.

But she said that "certain limited restrictions" on compensation "may help to integrate student-athletes into the academic communities of their schools."